Lifeboat Foundation

Big technology companies seem to be waging a war on humankind’s long-standing intellectual tradition, according to author Franklin Foer, who shows us how to fight back.

TOKYO (Reuters) — A series of shallow earthquakes shook parts of western Japan on Monday and authorities warned that further strong shaking is possible over the coming days.

A stone torii gate damaged by an earthquake is seen at Karita Shrine in Ohda, Shimane Prefecture, Japan in this photo taken by Kyodo April 9, 2018. Mandatory credit Kyodo/via REUTERS.

A split in the African plate resulted in a gaping crevice in Kenya’s Rift Valley. While it is moving slowly, it is fast in geographical terms.

3D map of all known stellar systems in the solar neighbourhood within a radius of 12.5 light-years. The Sun is at the centre and the Epsilon Indi binary system with the brown dwarf Epsilon Indi B lies near the bottom. The colour is indicative of the temperature and the spectral class — white stars are (main-sequence) A and F dwarfs; yellow stars like the Sun are G dwarfs; orange stars are K dwarfs; and red stars are M dwarfs, by far the most common type of star in the solar neighbourhood. The blue axes are oriented along the galactic coordinate system, and the radii of the rings are 5, 10, and 15 light-years, respectively.

Sunspots come and go in 11-year cycles with fluctuations in solar magnetic activity.

Stuart Clark

We’ve all heard the old saying, “Money is what makes the world go round.” And while the monetary system is still relevant today, its role and distinction have diminished quite significantly in the pursuit of overwhelming abundance. In today’s world, convenience has become the ultimate product.

A new world is emerging thanks to the technological revolution being waged by a base of consumers who dream of a future where scarcity no longer exists.

Continue reading “In the 21st Century, Convenience is What Makes the World Go Round” »

Many great ideas in this article!

For the last few years, Goodyear has rolled into the Geneva Motor Show with new tire designs that could be described as intriguing concepts at best and crazy, outlandish ideas at worst. Either way, they do provoke thought around the future of transport and this year’s rendition is no different, hiding living moss inside the sidewall to cleanse the surrounding air as the car rolls down the road.

Continue reading “Goodyear goes green in Geneva with photosynthesizing concept tire” »

A black hole could strip your past and give you infinite futures, according to a new study.

Why does everyone assume that the AI revolution will either lead to a fiery apocalypse or a glorious utopia, and not something in between? Of course, part of this is down to the fact that you get more attention by saying “The end is nigh!” or “Utopia is coming!”

But part of it is down to how humans think about change, especially unprecedented change. Millenarianism doesn’t have anything to do with being a “millennial,” being born in the 90s and remembering Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It is a way of thinking about the future that involves a deeply ingrained sense of destiny. A definition might be: “Millenarianism is the expectation that the world as it is will be destroyed and replaced with a perfect world, that a redeemer will come to cast down the evil and raise up the righteous.”

Millenarian beliefs, then, intimately link together the ideas of destruction and creation. They involve the idea of a huge, apocalyptic, seismic shift that will destroy the fabric of the old world and create something entirely new. Similar belief systems exist in many of the world’s major religions, and also the unspoken religion of some atheists and agnostics, which is a belief in technology.

Continue reading “What If the AI Revolution Is Neither Utopia nor Apocalypse, but Something in Between?” »